svk patch command can help out on the situation where you want to maintain your patchset to a given project. It is used under the situation that you have no direct write access to remote repository, thus svk push cannot be used.

Suppose you mirror project foo to //mirror/foo, create a local copy on //local/foo, and check out to ~/dev/foo. After you've done some work, you type:

svk commit -m "Add my new feature"

to commit changes from ~/dev/foo to //local/foo. If you have commit access to the upstream repository, you can submit your changes directly like this:

svk push //local/foo

Sometimes, it's useful to send a patch, rather than submit changes directly, either because you don't have permission to commit to the upstream repository or because you don't think your changes are ready to be committed.

To create a patch containing the differences between //local/foo and //mirror/foo, use this command:

svk push -P Foo //local/foo

The -P flag tells svk that you want to create a patch rather than push the changes to the upstream repository. -P takes a single flag: a patch name. It probably makes sense to name it after the feature implemented or bug fixed by the patch. Patch files you generate will be created in the patch subdirectory of your local svk repository.

Over time, other developers will make changes to project foo. From time to time, you may need to update your patch so that it still applies cleanly.

First, make sure your local branch is up to date with any changes made upstream:

svk pull //local/foo

Next, update your patch so that it will apply cleanly to the newest version of the upstream repository:

svk patch --update Foo

Finally, regenerate your patch to include other changes you've made on your local branch since you created or last regenerated the patch:

svk patch --regen Foo

To get a list of all patches your svk knows about, run:

svk patch --list

To see the current version of a specific patch, run:

svk patch --view Foo

When you're done with a patch and don't want it hanging around anymore, run: svk patch --delete Foo

To apply a patch to the repository that someone else has sent you, run: